A Shot in the Dark
by Clemab
Summary: Aliana Wayland and her twin, Jace, lived perfectly normal lives for shadowhunters. However, one night in August they meet a girl named Clary who turns their lives upside down. Old enemies are back and new horrors are waiting in the shadows and a decision needs to be made by the twins. Will they choose to save the world, or will they ally with the evil that made them? T for Language


"Chicken!"

"Beef!"

" _Chicken!_ "

"BEEF!"

"CHI-"

"For the love of god, SHUT UP!" Alec exclaimed.

Me and my twin, Jace, turned to stare at him.

"You can bicker about the best flavor of cup noodle later. Look." Alec nodded his head towards the door. I looked past dozens of gyrating mundane bodies and colored smoke to see a boy with bright blue hair enter the Pandemonium club.

"A Faerie?" I asked, looking closer to see his eyes, which were a startling shade of green.

"A demon, I think." said Isabelle, Alec's sister and my Parabatai, which was a Shadowhunter title, given to people who had close bonds.

Jace gently drummed his fingers against my shoulder, tapping out a message. It was something we had done since we were barely out of diapers, when our father had taught us Morse code. We would tap out messages to each other and hold entire conversations. I concentrated on what he was saying to me. _You okay?_

I took hold of his arm, tapping out an answer on his wrist.

 _Yes. Why?_

 _Shaking._

I held a hand out in front of my face. Jace was right. It was shaking slightly. I smirked.

 _Alec gave me coffee._

Jace rolled his eyes, _Great._

Jace cleared his throat. "Isabelle can lure him into into that storage room. We'll follow, kill him and go home happy in the knowledge that this world has one less demon."

Isabelle sighed before stepping forward, weaving her way through the crowds and up to the boy. I felt a wave of anxiety for her, not liking my Parabatai that close to the demon even if I knew she was perfectly safe.

He followed her towards the storage room as if in a trance and we went after them. The mundane's were all oblivious, thanks to the glamour runes we had used.

After Izzy had went into the storage cupboard, we paused for a moment to draw our weapons. Jace pulled out his seraph blade and I unsheathed my daggers, Aurora and Opacare. Dawn and Dusk. I had been given them by my father around the same time Jace got his first sword and they had been with me ever since.

We slipped into the dark room just in time to hear the demon say.

"You-!"

There was a series of quiet thuds before Izzy laughed.

"He's all yours."

Jace and Alec stepped forward, tying him with Isabelle's whip against a concrete pillar.

"So." said Jace, "Are there any more with you?"

"Any other what?" the boy asked.

"Come on now." Jace held up his hands, showing the demon his runes. "You know what I am."

"Shadowhunter." The demon hissed.

Jace grinned, "Got you."

Then, behind us, I heard a door open. The sound was almost silent, but I knew what it was. I climbed up a shelving unit, unnoticed by the others who were interrogating the demon. I quietly crawled across the top of the shelf, noting that I was metres from the ground.

A short girl with long red hair was hesitating just inside the doorway. She bent to pull her sneaker from the cables scattered across the floor when Isabelle's laughter echoed down towards us, the demon saying something sharply.

She straightened up and looked straight at Isabelle, the boys and the demon. Her face emptied of what little color it already had and she stared wide eyed at them. I knew exactly how it would look to her – three people threatening a seemingly harmless boy, but that was the thing... she shouldn't have been able to see them. This girl was obviously not a mundane.

Jace began to pace back and forth, his arms crossed over his chest. "So," he said. "You still haven't told me if there are any other of your kind with you."

"I don't know what you're talking about." The demons tone was pained but surly.

"He means other demons," said Alec, speaking for the first time. "You do know what a demon is, don't you?"

The demon turned his face away, his mouth working.

"Demons," drawled Jace, tracing the word on the air with his finger. "Religiously defined as hell's denizens, the servants of Satan, but understood here, for the purposes of the Clave, to be any malevolent spirit whose origin is outside our own home dimension—"

"That's enough, Jace," said Isabelle.

"Isabelle's right," agreed Alec. "Nobody here needs a lesson in semantics—or demonology."

The girls eyebrows shot up and I watched in amusement.

"Isabelle and Alec think I talk too much," Jace said, confidingly. "And my twin. Do you think I talk too much?"

The demon didn't reply. His mouth was still working. "I could give you information," he said. "I know where Valentine is."

I frowned. There it was again. Every demon we had killed in the last few months had claimed the same thing – that Valentine was back.

Valentine was a cruel Shadowhunter who had died the year me and Jace were born. He had sought to rule the clave and kill all downworlders.

Jace glanced back at Alec, who shrugged. "Valentine's in the ground," Jace said. "The thing's just toying with us."

Isabelle tossed her hair. "Kill it, Jace," she said. "It's not going to tell us anything."

Jace raised his hand and the girl took a small step forward. I chose that moment to reveal myself. I jumped off the shelving unit and landed behind her, as silent as a cat.

"And just what," I breathed down her neck, "do you think you are doing?"

The girl whipped round, looking terrified.

"Valentine is back!" the demon protested, dragging at the bonds that held his hands behind his back. "All the Infernal Worlds know it—I know it—I can tell you where he is—"

"By the Angel, every time we capture one of you bastards, you claim you know where Valentine is. Well, we know where he is too. He's in hell. And you—" Jace sounded angry, but I cut him off.

"Jace." I called, pulling the girl from behind a pillar, "We have a spectator."

"You cant do this!" the girl cried out.

Jace whirled, so startled that the knife flew from his hand and clattered against the concrete floor. Isabelle and Alec turned along with him, wearing identical expressions of astonishment. The blue-haired boy hung in his bonds, stunned and gaping.

It was Alec who spoke first. "What's this?" he demanded, looking from the girl to us, as if we might know what she was doing there.

"It's a girl," Jace said, recovering his composure. "Surely you've seen girls before, Alec. Your sister Isabelle is one." He took a step closer to where I had firm grip of the girls elbow"A mundie girl," he said, half to himself. "And she can see us."

"Of course I can see you," the girl said. "I'm not blind, you know."

"Oh, but you are," said Jace, bending to pick up his knife. "You just don't know it." He straightened up. "You'd better get out of here, if you know what's good for you."

"I'm not going anywhere," Clary said. "If I do, you'll kill him." She pointed at the boy with the blue hair.

"That's true," admitted Jace, twirling the knife between his fingers. "What do you care if I kill him or not?"

"Be-because—," Clary spluttered. "You can't just go around killing people."

"That is not a person, girl." I told her, "That is a monster."

"Aliana," said Isabelle warningly. "That's enough."

"You're crazy," the girl said, backing into me. "I've called the police, you know. They'll be here any second."

"She's lying," said Alec, but there was doubt on his face. "Jace, do you—"

He never got to finish his sentence. At that moment the demon, with a high, yowling cry, tore free of the restraints binding him to the pillar, and flung himself on Jace.

They fell to the ground and rolled together, the demon tearing at Jace with hands that glittered as if tipped with metal. I released the girl, darting forward with my daggers and she backed up. In my peripheral vision I saw her feet catch on a loop of wiring and she went down. I could hear Isabelle shrieking. the demon was sitting on Jace's chest. Blood gleamed at the tips of his razorlike claws.

I flung myself at the demon, filled with sudden panic for my twin I crashed into the demon, knocking us both off balance. We landed in a heap a few metres away, momentarily dazed, I didnt notice his clawed hand coming down until it hit, shredding the skin of my upper arm. I hissed in pain and lashed out with Aurora, slicing the skin of his cheek. Isabelle, Alec and Jace came running over. Isabelle's whip slashed his back and he howled, falling again.

Jace jumped on top of the demon and sank his Seraph blade into the demons chest. With a grimace Jace stood up. His black shirt was blacker now in some places, wet with blood. He looked down at the twitching form at his feet, reached down, and yanked out the knife. The hilt was slick with black fluid.

The demons eyes flickered open. His eyes, fixed on Jace, seemed to burn. Between his teeth, he hissed, "So be it. The Forsaken will take you all."

Jace snarled. The boy's eyes rolled back. His body began to jerk and twitch as he crumpled, folding in on himself, growing smaller and smaller until he vanished entirely.

Isabelle rushed over to me, clutching her stele. She drew a healing rune on my arm and I sghed as the five claw marks knitted together.

The not-so-mundane girl tried to run but found her way blocked by my very angry brother.

"Stupid little mundie." He growled, "You could've gotten me or my sister killed." he grabbed her wrist to stop her from running.

"She's crazy," the girl gasped, trying to pull her wrist back. Jace tightened his grip. "You're all crazy. What do you think you are, vigilante killers? The police—"

"The police aren't usually interested unless you can produce a body," I told her. Cradling my arm, I picked his way across the cable-strewn floor toward the girl. Isabelle followed me, a scowl scratched into her usually happy face.

The girl glanced at the spot where the demon had disappeared from, and said nothing. There wasn't even a smear of blood there—nothing to show that the demon had ever existed.

"They return to their home dimensions when they die," said Jace. "In case you were wondering."

"Jace," Alec hissed. "Be careful."

Jace's eyes met mine and he tapped out a message on the metal shelf next to him the sounds echoed through the room with a metallic clanging sound.

 _Fixed?_

I nodded reassuringly and his face relaxed slightly.

Jace drew his arm away from the girl."She can see us, Alec," he said. "She already knows too much."

"So what do you want me to do with her?" Isabelle demanded.

"Let her go," Jace said quietly. Isabelle shot him a surprised, almost angry look, but didn't argue.

"Maybe we should bring her back with us," Alec said. "I bet Hodge would like to talk to her."

"No way are we bringing her to the Institute," I said. "She's a mundie."

"Or is she?" said Jace softly. His quiet tone was worse than Isabelle's snapping or Alec's anger. "Have you had dealings with demons, little girl? Walked with warlocks, talked with the Night Children? Have you—"

"My name is not 'little girl,'" the girl interrupted. "And I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't believe in—in demons, or whatever you—"

"Clary?" It was a boys voice. The girl, who I assumed must be 'Clary' whirled around. A boy with dark brown hair and glasses was standing by the storage room door. A burly bouncer was next to him. "Are you okay?" He peered at her through the gloom. "Why are you in here by yourself? What happened to the people- you know, the ones with the knives?"

Clary stared at him, then looked behind her, where we stood. The mundane's couldn't see us. Jace grinned at her and dropped a half-apologetic, half-mocking shrug.

Somehow neither was Clary. Slowly she turned back to the boy with an embarrassed look on her face, "I thought they went in here," she said lamely. "But I guess they didn't. I'm sorry." She glanced from the boy, whose expression was changing from worried to embarrassed, to the bouncer, who just looked annoyed. "It was a mistake."

Next to me, Isabelle giggled and I couldn't help but join her. I chuckled, and she linked her arm with mine as we watched Clary, her friend and the bouncer go.


End file.
